Eve Hell, Watercolour 2017, by me

Today’s post is brought to you by the letter Eve and the number Hell. The first Rock Goddess of my blog.

Like all of my Rock Deities, Eve has that undeniable star power mashed up with talent that oozes from her soul and a passion and work ethic that never ceases to amaze me. But Eve has a special place in my heart that no other Rock God or Goddess can occupy, she is my soul sister.

And no, I’m not saying that as some sort of crazy stalker fan; Eve and I met in high school and quickly became livelong besties. We bonded back in the day over our shared passion for music, other fine arts, and over the heaven and hell that is high school. We met when dreams were possibilities and the world was ours for the taking. She was going to be the first heavy metal opera star and I was going to be her recording engineer and fashion designer.

I credit/thank/blame her for being the catalyst for my U2 obsession – I loved the Joshua Tree album from its release, but that was about all I knew of them. Then in 1991, Eve hands me her Achtung Baby CD and says: “You really need to listen to this…” and the rest is history.  She’s had that kind of impact on my life, life changing, part of my core being impact, and not just with U2.

Almost thirty years later and this friendship with Eve (OMG are we really that old?!) is a sisterhood plum full of such exchanges of musical finds, deep conversations into the night, life philosophies and more than a handful of U2 concerts together as well. She is one of my favourite people ever and I have had the pleasure of witnessing her transcendence over the years into her own right as Rock Goddess.  I am sooo proud of her – in a world of Madonnas, Lady Gagas, Patti Smiths, etc., there is no other woman I would want to feature as my first Rock Goddess.

While the heavy metal opera star label may not have happened (its probably an extremely small niche in the music world…), her mad bass-playing skills and powerful, yet sultry vocals have been a welcome constant in the Alberta music scene. She and one of her bands, Eve Hell and the Razors – a rockabilly/psychobilly/americana/punk/blues and more, rock band for whom she is the lead singer and upright bass player, just celebrated their 10 year anniversary last year.

Their song Zombie Love really needs to find its way to a Supernatural episode… I’m just sayin… its’s all sexy and dark and well, zombie like… I can totally picture Sam and Dean hunting zombies to this song, maybe one of them becomes the lustful target of a zombie… the other rescues him at the last second… ok, side-tracked there… back on point. This video above is their tribute to Johnny Cash – Big River. Smokin hot vocals, my friend!

Eve also plays bass for the stylish The 427’s, a instrumental surf rock band with jammin songs, tight guitar riffs (hope I got that right- musical lingo-wise…what I mean is I like the guitar parts dammit … I might need a basic music terminology course to carry on with this blog), wicked drum beats, and well, girlfriend got bass (guitar)!

Plus there’s the cool film noir videos. I especially love this mysterious Urchin Stomp video… Why are they all hypnotized by the static on the tv?? What do they see? Is this a statement about our society and how we are all addicted to tv (and now social media) to the point that we are essentially locked in our homes staring at the screens as life goes by?? Will they ever be free!?

I know I am biased, but both bands are pretty awesome to see live as well.  If you find yourself in a city where they are playing, check them out.  I promise it’s worth it!